Horner: 2019 rules an expensive 'mistake'

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes that rushing through aero rule changes in 2019 is a "mistake", and that even the owners of Formula 1, Liberty Media, would accept this.

Over the winter, all ten teams have been hard at work preparing their new cars for the 2019 season, after changes were introduced last season in order to increase overtaking.

These changes mean that the cars should have a third less downforce than they had previously, as they force the teams to have much simpler front and rear wings.

This is supposed to improve overtaking because up until now, we saw that the wake generated by a car ahead made it very difficult for cars to follow each other. Due to the lesser levels of downforce, this effect should be reduced, therefore enabling cars to follow each other more closely.

At a media event on Tuesday, Horner told Autosport: “From what we see, the characteristics of the car are slightly different in different areas of the track, but in terms of following each other closely, I don’t think it is going to make any difference whatsoever.

“But, what I think will happen in the early part of the year, is that some people will have got it right, and some people won’t. Then, the development and evolution you have will be on probably quite a steep development graph over the first three or four months of the year."

When asked about how concerning it would be if these rules failed, Horner said: “I think they would even accept that it was probably a mistake to rush through this front wing change for this year.

“They have cherry picked something in isolation off a future concept for 2021, and rushed it through onto the current car.

“Like with all these things, there is no silver bullet. It has to be everything working in harmony with everything else. 

"Just taking a front wing and saying that will make racing better, it is quite a naive and ultimately expensive approach. And of course the burden of that expense is on the teams.”